Henry shot towards Aubrey and gathered her hair away from her face, feeling otherwise helpless as she leaned her palms against her knees and dry heaved, raggedly drawing a breath when her stomach stopped trying to flip itself inside out.

"Come on," Henry said, putting an arm around her shoulders and leading her back the way they'd come. "Let's get you back inside."

"I'm fine," Aubrey complained, trying to shrug his arm away.

Henry dropped his hold on her but left a hand between her shoulder blades and kept steering her back towards the castle with a simple, "Nope. If you're sick, you don't need to be out in this cold air."

"I'm not sick," she whined.

"Uh-huh," he said flatly, having gotten used to dealing with her oftentimes sharp tongue over the past couple of months.

But she was suddenly wrenching away from his touch and turning to face him, brown eyes flashing with something in their depths that registered as being close to fury, as she repeated in a loud, sharp snap, "I am not sick."

Before Henry could gather himself enough to respond – or let alone reach out to her – she was already gone and running down the path to town.

Debating whether or not he should go after her, he called out, "Aubrey, wait!"

The words she screamed back at him were harsher, coarser than any he'd had directed at him in his life, and he decided that, yeah, he would give her space and wait for her here.

Henry was waiting for Aubrey in the sitting room when she trudged in not long after darkness fell in the evening. Sitting in the armchair facing the fireplace, he heard the heavy entrance door creak open and even Aubrey's light footsteps were loud against the stone floor in the otherwise silent castle.

"Hey," he called out softly, hoping she wouldn't try to sneak past the doorway.

She froze for a second before slinking into the room and stopping just inside the doorway, shoulders hunched as she repeated, "Hey."

"You okay?" he asked hesitantly, standing in front of the fireplace so that he could turn to look at her.

She nodded too quickly and said softly, "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"It's okay," Henry said. "You aren't feeling well; you're allowed to be off-balance. Heck, this whole situation gives anybody a good reason to be off-balance."

She snorted and nodded at her shoes, an ironic sort of expression stealing across her face. "Yeah, this thing is nuts alright."

Eyebrows drawing down into a "v," Henry hazarded, "Is something up? Something that I should know about?"

She shook her head, and again the movement was too quick, but he wasn't about to push it, considering the rest of the day. So he said instead, "Okay. Um, I left you a plate in the kitchen, if you're hungry."

Aubrey shook her head, giving him a soft, "No, thanks. I don't want to chance it" before she said suddenly, "Good night; I'm going to bed."

Henry stood there for a second, confused, as he watched her wheel away and then heard her thunder up the stairs to the fourth level. And for the first time during their stay at the castle, Aubrey was desperate enough to get away from… whatever was going on… that she slept in the bedroom she'd chosen on the fourth level instead of by him.

Over the next month, Aubrey never quite recovered from whatever she was sick from, and things remained… different… between her and Henry – uncertain and a little tense. They both still cared for one another, Henry knew that much – but he also knew that she was still hiding something from him. He did not, however, know what that was, and it bothered him that his one friend in this place… she didn't trust him.

That was the only conclusion that he could come to. Whatever it was, the fact that Aubrey was hiding something from him meant that she couldn't trust him with it. And he rather desperately wanted to gain that trust.

So he thought hard and he worked harder, and he came up with the best Christmas present for her that he could think of. He spent hours – entire days – up in Belle's library, pouring over the section of books he'd found there that belonged to his grandfather. Books on magic.

He knew for a fact that the blonde he shared this castle with was a spitfire even on the best of days, and on the worst days – of which there had recently been many, thanks to her feeling under the weather – she could be an unholy terror. The best thing he could think to do – admittedly for the both of them – was to heal her, and in the Enchanted Forest, the only way he could think to do that was with magic.

So from Thanksgiving to Christmas, he holed up in the library and learned. To figure out the spells in the spell book – most importantly the healing spells – he used what little Elvish he'd been taught back in Storybrooke and figured out the words he didn't recognize. He concentrated on the project until his head hurt, until his very brain ached – until he was certain that he could help Aubrey instead of hurting her.

Because if he hurt her, he would never – ever – forgive himself.

But then came Christmas morning and the whole matter of convincing her to let him help her.

"Good morning," he called out merrily, clattering down the steps into the kitchen, where he knew he would find Aubrey, early riser that she was.

"Morning, Marquess," Aubrey returned, looking over her shoulder at him and letting the corners of her mouth tilt up.

He joined her at the table where she was chopping – "Vegetables already?"

"To put in with the chicken for Christmas dinner."

"Boiled chicken, I assume?" Henry questioned, peering into the cauldron only to find an unexpected surprise – the chicken was submerged in oil. "You're," he said slowly. "Trying to fry it? It really must be Christmas!"